Xiaoling Zhang

This research probes into the representations of the Nanjing Massacre in Chinese American literature, in particular Shouhua Qi's When the Purple Mountain Burns, Ha Jin's Nanjing Requiem, Geling Yan's The Flowers of War, and Wing Tek Lum's The Nanjing Massacre: Poems. In light of Rene Girard's theories of violence, in particular his ideas of a circle of violence, mimetic desire, sacrificial substitution, and myth as connected with stereotypes of persecution, this research diagnoses the terrors and horrors depicted in the above-mentioned texts and argues that the Nanjing Massacre as represented in Chinese American literature is no ordinary act of war, but sheer violence---violence taking innocent civilians and surrendered soldiers as scapegoats. Focusing on how each text addresses violence through the lens of perpetrators, rescuers, scapegoats, and secondary witnesses, this research concludes that the surge of the Nanjing Massacre texts at the beginning of the twenty-first century is the collective efforts of Chinese American writers, who are concerned about the witnessing crisis of the Nanjing Massacre and wish to reconstruct the forgotten history by drawing a panoramic view of the intensity and scale of violence borne in this catastrophe.

Representations of the Nanjing Massacre in Chinese American Literature

Perpetrators, Rescuers, Scapegoats, and Secondary Witnesses

Yongnian Zheng

In recent years, China has experienced a revolution in information and communications technology (ICT), in 2003 surpassing the USA as the world’s largest telephone market, and as of February 2008, the number of Chinese Internet users has become the largest in the world. At the same time, China has overtaken the USA as the world’s biggest supplier of information technology goods. However, this transformation has occurred against the backdrop of a resolutely authoritarian political system and strict censorship by the Party-state. This book examines China’s ICT revolution, exploring the social, cultural and political implications of China’s transition to a more information-rich and communication-intensive society. The pace of the development of ICT in China has precipitated much speculation about political change and democratisation. This book explores the reality of ICT in China, showing clearly that whilst China remains a one-party state, with an ever-present and sophisticated regime of censorship, substantial social and political changes have taken place. It considers the ICT revolution in all its aspects, outlining the dominant trends, the impact on other countries of China as an ICT exporter, strategies of government censorship and use of ICT for propaganda, the implications of censorship for Chinese governance, the political implications of internet culture and blogging, and the role of domestic and foreign NGOs. Overall, this book is a vital resource for anyone seeking to understand a rapidly transforming China, both today and in the years to come.

Social Changes and State Responses

China's Information and Communications Technology Revolution

Yang Fu

This book examines the sustainability transition theory in the context of urbanization in China, tracing the development of eco and low-carbon cities. It examines how ideas on building eco-cities and low-carbon cities travel from nation to nation, how they are adopted in the Chinese administrative context and what role inter-scalar actors play in getting the ideas transferred, translated and operationalized on the ground. Offering an overarching theoretical framework that incorporates all urban sustainability experiments in China, the book conducts a comprehensive analysis of the master plans of these new towns and summarizes the normative transition targets of sustainable urban experiments. It explores how they differ from each other and how they influence transition dynamics in practice. By examining four eco and low-carbon new towns deemed representative of current major approaches to sustainability transition management in China, the book provides a detailed depiction of generic transition management and explains the different transitional trajectories for each type of sustainable urban experiment. It demonstrates how subnational-level and city-level transitions mediate the national transition. Through a thorough inquiry into inter-scalar dynamics, institutional arrangements and techno-social innovations in sustainable urban experiments, the book links generalized transition rules and specific contexts to present a full view of the challenges, failures and territorial problems of eco and low-carbon new towns. This book makes a novel contribution to the study of Chinese urbanization by revisiting issues and problems of contemporary urban China. The reflection on these urban issues will provide implications to policymakers, professionals and the common reader interested in the future sustainable urbanism in China.

Xiaoling Zhang

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